Lottery ticket games are sometimes discontinued because tickets awarding the top prizes in the game have been sold out even though there may exist many tickets remaining in the game for sale. For example, in most instant lottery ticket games, a set of tickets is printed with play or prize value indicia under a scratch-off coating according to a predetermined prize structure. Typically, the prize structure consists of one or more large-value or ‘top’ prizes, a number of lesser value prizes and a large number of tickets that are not prize winners. The prize values in a game are imaged randomly on the tickets so that, in theory, each player has an equal chance to win one of the prizes.
In certain circumstances, however, problems have arisen as a game's tickets are sold and as the top prizes are claimed. There are, for instance, certain lottery administrations in the United States that post on their web sites the remaining prizes within a game. As the game is sold, the tickets having the various prizes are cashed, including the top prizes; and the lottery will update the website with the remaining prizes within the game. In some cases, the game will still have a significant number of tickets to be sold after the top prizes are cashed. This can lead to complaints from customers that it is no longer possible to win one of the top prizes as advertised by the lottery administration in its general promotional literature.
Accordingly, an invention is desired that provides a secure means by which players who participated in a first lottery game can also participate in a subsequent lottery game using the same lottery ticket as used in the first game. The invention is particularly advantageous for lottery games that would otherwise be discontinued due to the claiming of top prizes as set forth above. However, the present invention is not limited to discontinued games and concerns more generally a lottery game that allows a secure means by which one or more additional games can be played using the same lottery ticket and a means for ensuring that a player in subsequent games had a valid ticket without necessarily requiring such player to maintain possession of such ticket for purposes of claiming a prize.